Elder Scrolls III - Morrowind

[small_world]

Are there many good graphics mods or gameplay /fighting mods for morrowind?
I loved it, played it on Xbox, would play again, but don't think I'd enjoy it as much if it felt as outdated as it is.

[kittens]

Oh, I see - I don't bother walking.  I run everywhere with occasional stops to let my fatigue bar fill back up.

i do that too. obviously when i said walking i was talking about running. don't you think it's sooooooo sloooooooow?

[Cerys]

The longer I play, the less slow it seems.  My main problem at the moment is the use of the word 'fetcher' as an insult.  I read it as 'felcher'.  Every time.

[kittens]

just went to vivec for the first time. place is a fucking nightmare. right to the top of the massive building for a job, then all the way down and back up another to do the job, then back down that, back up the other to collect your reward and back down again to continue playing the fucking game fucking hell

[Bhazor]

It never fucking fails.

Somebody mentions how good Morrowind is. I install it on Steam. I spend a full evening downloading all the "essential mod compilation". Spend most of the next evening installing those mods. Spend one hour actually playing the game and go... oh this feels bad. There's a reason everyone keeps trying to rebuild the world of Morrowind in the newest Elder Scrolls engine.

https://tesrenewal.com/skywind-faq

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

They should've called the Oblivion mod Oblivirim.

I did laugh at just how un-arsed they are about doing that one.

[Bhazor]

Even the biggest Elder Scrolls fanboys tend to mumble when they talk about how good Oblivion is. Morrowind, great setting awful core game. Skyrim, good setting good core game. Oblivion, dull as dish water setting but at least functional core game. If you ignore the pie minigame.

Oblivion was certainly an achievement for the time but it really doesn't hold up nowadays.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Not sure Morrowind is an awful core game. The combat is frustrating but the calculations for hits are far more complex and sophisticated than Skyrim's. The gameplay has more depth and that allows you to make your own fun. Skyrim has fewer weapons, armour, spells, and less ability to customise and create. This is the core game. The only real thing it lacks is the arcade feeling of the combat- only the block and parry sensation is remotely realistic.

Skywind will correct the combat and update the graphics but lose the depth. They need to get Iit out in the next 18 months or the graphics will be looking so out of date they need to do a further mod.

[Bhazor]

Maybe awful is too strong a word. But when 60-70% of your time is spent fighting the combat needs to be more complex than this. Those calculations may make the game deeper in a mechanical sense but in practice all you ever do is run straight at the enemy and left click till they fall over. It may be more stat based than Skyrim/Oblivion but its just as arcadey as them.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

60%-70% of my time on Morrowind was definitely not spent fighting. More like 5% of the time was spent fighting.

Those calculations may make the game deeper in a mechanical sense but in practice all you ever do is run straight at the enemy and left click till they fall over

It's not very good, but there is a little more to it than that. I think the main issue is the lack of solidity in Morrowind- it was very crude to have non-hits displayed as your weapon not making an impact.

It may be more stat based than Skyrim/Oblivion but its just as arcadey as them.

I actually mean Skyrim is arcadey in a good way, in the sense that the fighting feels solid, the blocking and parrying and the range of hits means you're absorbed into the physical action and not bashing away waiting for the computation to resolve itself. You can also learn from previous fights as to what to do, and that translates into the sense of personal development you want from an RPG.

I hope for future games- not just Elder Scrolls games either- they will reform the equally unrealistic concept of the health potion; standing there gobbling restorative liquid while being shat fire at by a dragon or a necromancer. This could be done by putting more focus on shielding spells and the impact of armour, but at the moment the potions system slows down the action, takes you out of the realism of being there and can be hugely exploited through Alchemy to create what amount to full lives.

[Bhazor]

Fallout: New Vegas tried to do that by having the potions (called stimpacks) slowly regenerate health over the course of 10 seconds or so. It had a definite improvement on combat giving it a much more back and forth feel as you dash off from the fight to cry wank in the bathroom while your stim pack slooowwwlllyy ticked in. Admittedly they spoiled it somewhat by failing to do the same with food so you end up in the situation of eating a whole suckling pig in the middle of a fight to instantly recover 25% health.

[Kryton]

The longer I play, the less slow it seems.  My main problem at the moment is the use of the word 'fetcher' as an insult.  I read it as 'felcher'.  Every time.

I think in Morrowind your character actually got faster as they level up a certain attribute (such as running/jumping), I think this was later removed in Oblivion. I may be wrong.

[kittens]

yes, you can speed your character up. it's a bit annoying because you have to put points into speed or whatever instead of getting tougher or more smart. i'm really enjoying it, gonna go mad on it after uni today. can't wait

[Captain Poodle Basher]

I think in Morrowind your character actually got faster as they level up a certain attribute (such as running/jumping), I think this was later removed in Oblivion. I may be wrong.

The console version of the game has an issue with "Corpse Mapping" as well. Whenever you kill someone/something, the corpse has to be plotted along with any lootable stuff. After a while, plotting all of this drives the processor a bit loopy and the game starts to hang. I used to strip every corpse and the either ditch the loot or sell it as this removes the corpse from the game.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

That's right. It's mad they ever thought the Xbox could cope with remembering the mapping of corpses and items of that quantity.

Have you made a 'glory room' yet kittens? I don't mean a room where you go to have an erection, but the next best thing, a display of your hoard of treasure. I found that quite fun.

I'm afraid Hannah's Whereizit guide to Morrowind went offline some time ago. It was fantastic.

This is a slightly less user friendly list of where to get armour and weapons:
http://www.uesp.net/morrow/hints/mwitems.shtml
And for the one off items 'and shit':
http://www.uesp.net/morrow/hints/mwartifacts.shtml

Go to the Guild of Fighters in AldRuhn with all the invisibility potions, lockpicks and sneaking skillz you can muster. A near full suit of Glass Armour lies fairly unprotected.

[Solid Jim]

Have you made a 'glory room' yet kittens? I don't mean a room where you go to have an erection, but the next best thing, a display of your hoard of treasure. I found that quite fun.

I arranged such a room. Of interest to almost nobody, it is pictured here. Since the untimely death of my hard drive, this is all that remains from the five years I spent playing through Morrowind (with the occasional two-year hiatus.)

Did anyone try the Morrowind Graphics Extender mod? It has some nice effects but ultimately I feel the 'distant land' feature makes the world feel too small. When you can climb up a medium-sized hill and have a clear view of Vivec in one direction and Red Mountain in the other, the illusion is shattered - clearly the sense of distance is balanced on the technical limitations of the original game engine. This all serves to reinforce my position as a pedantic purist opposed to the deviation from any aspect of the original version of any game.

(How do they deal with this nowadays? If the draw distance in a game is high enough, flying up into the air will reveal that the world is in fact a giant flat square, ruining any sense of immersion. Can they simulate a horizon?)

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Ah, Daedric Crescents. One of the coolest items yet it never did much for me. A boring zappy daedric sword with the stats ragged to fuck usually did the job.

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Umbra_Sword_%28Morrowind%29

I enjoyed obtaining Umbra, it involved a trek up a mountain and an absolutely nails-as-fuck grim battle against an Orc perched up there.



You only have to glimpse at him for a moment to realise 'this isn't going to be easy'.

[kittens]

I AM GONNA GET THAT SWord ohYES

[kittens]

man, getting around is a real chore. not only is walking/running reeeeeeallly slooooow, often i'm told i need to go to a place, but have no idea where the place is. like it's somewhere miles away but i have no clue to where it is. sometimes they mark it on the map for me, which is nice, but often i've just got no idea and i'm left really slowly wandering around

[Cerys]

Check your journal.  I faffed about for ages trying to find Aaaarghthand until it occurred to me to do just that.

[Phil_A]

man, getting around is a real chore. not only is walking/running reeeeeeallly slooooow, often i'm told i need to go to a place, but have no idea where the place is. like it's somewhere miles away but i have no clue to where it is. sometimes they mark it on the map for me, which is nice, but often i've just got no idea and i'm left really slowly wandering around

Boots of blinding speed, mate. Absolutely essential.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

man, getting around is a real chore. not only is walking/running reeeeeeallly slooooow, often i'm told i need to go to a place, but have no idea where the place is. like it's somewhere miles away but i have no clue to where it is. sometimes they mark it on the map for me, which is nice, but often i've just got no idea and i'm left really slowly wandering around

Have you got the actual Morrowind map? Best advice is to get the silt strider to the nearest town to where you need to be and then head out on foot. It is an actual adventure game, the game wants you to encounter diversions and obstacles along the way.

[kittens]

Boots of blinding speed, mate. Absolutely essential.

just went looking for them and accidentally had an adventure instead. but i'll get 'em

[Cerys]

So.  Many.  Cliff.  Racers.

[kittens]

i'd heard they would be a problem. however i'd say the amount of cliff racers is 'reasonable'

[Cerys]

It is, really.  I'm just getting pissed off with them because they've stopped being a challenge and become an irritation.  I may have to just start letting them follow me into towns so the guards can have some fun.

[Phil_A]

i'd heard they would be a problem. however i'd say the amount of cliff racers is 'reasonable'

Oh, just wait. The number that spawns corresponds to how high your level is, so by the time you're at about Level 30, it looks like this every time you go outside.

[Cerys]

I'm level fifteen.  Woohoo!

[kittens]

i'm level ten and had noticed they'd started coming in groups. oh man this is gonna be a nightmare

in happier news i got my magic speed boots and found some super armour and an incredible weapon so i'm acing it so far

[Cerys]

I am now level nineteen and immune to disease.  Still not sneaky enough, though.